Land title transfers goes digital

Effective May 1, 2018 the transfer of land titles by sale will be done online via Irembo portal the online platform where Rwanda’s e-Government services and will be handled at the sector office rather than the district level. The move was announced by Rwanda Land Management and Use Authority (RLMUA).

The Chief Registrar of Land Titles, Esperance Mukamana said the development aims at enhancing service delivery in land management ensuring efficiency of the process which previously was bureaucratic.

Esperance Mukamana, the Chief Registrar of Land Titles

The application data for the transfer of a land title will be entered at the sector level and sent to RLMUAafter which approval of the new land title will be returned to the sector for the final decision.

Mukamana, who also the Director General of Rwanda Land Management and Use Authorityurged district officials to encourage and empower the sector offices to utilize the Irembo services particularly in implementing the transfer of land titles.

To sector offices lacking electricity or internet, RLMUA says they should be catered for so that they are powered for before they can handle the transactions.

The latest move by RLMUA is also intended to cut the time spent processing land titles, the new system will not take more than one week removing the previous system which was manual running on snail pace where the process could take over a month mostly in rural districts.

Rolling out this service will go smoothly according to Robert Manzi, at Rwanda Online which manages Irembo. He said that users will not have difficulty in using the new online land title transfer service because they have had time to pilot it.

Manzi explains that Irembo agents across the country will be able to support applicants and Rwanda Online staff will be readily available to help.

Ease doing business

The move to digitalize processing of land titles comes a month after Rwanda Land Management and Use Authority announced the ease of registering transfers of commercial and industrial properties.

The land authority in March this year initiated the transfer of commercial and industrial transfer process to a single day. Those seeking this service can deposit their files in the morning of any working day and are able to receive their land titles before the end of day.

This service also put in consideration businesses that are spread across the country and is not limited to Kigali only where RLMUA is headquartered but the service can also be obtained in zonal offices of the registrar of land titles located in Kayonza (East), Musanze (North), Nyanza (South) and Karongi (West).

Rwanda is making it possible for conducting land transactions online as a way of reducing time to facilitate operations of doing business and removing queues at administrative offices.

This is also intended to eliminate several trips people were making to sector and district offices in pursuit of the land title transfers, previously some were taking months to be completed.

Following its digitalisation the land management authority will be able to access all the applications through Irembo to check if the necessary application data are satisfactory and respond appropriately in a specified time frame.

According to Rwanda Online, after the successful implementation of this service the next movewill be to ensure that applicants can be able to apply and receive the new land titles online without necessarily going back to sector offices to get hard copies.

However, the law still requires for physical presence of both seller and buyer to have their applications notarised, if this is going to be fully automated it will require some changes in the law.

The land management authorityestablished a dispute settlement mechanism in case of disagreements where complainants can be filed a complaint or service seekers are available online.

The land registration in Rwanda was started in 2009, today oversix million titles have been issued.

RLMUAhas been established to put in place and operationalise an efficient system of land administration and land management that secure land ownership, promote investment in land for socio-economic development and poverty reduction.